Marvel's Midnight Suns

So let me get this straight. The impulse to write this review was the news of publisher implementing additional intrusive checks years post launch, supposedly requiring an online connection every 14 days. I didn't want to just repeat possible misinfo on the internet, though, I needed to verify this was a problem. Folks, 14 days is an overestimate. I took my Steam Deck completely offline between activation runs so no OS or game upgrade could disrupt the authentication state (I'm assuming shutdowns wouldn't disrupt it, because come on) and I was lucky when the game lasted 3 days without telling me it needs online mode for the "first launch". Then again, sometimes it straight crashed on startup. One could reasonably blame the hardware configuration, but this was exclusively a startup thing. The rumour goes, this is a response to copyright infringers managing a way around protection in the earlier version of the game. Now they have possibly a better experience playing it. Brilliant. This would be enough to recommend avoiding this game. But... maybe you don't care about that? I have no big complaints about technical side of actual game running, or the quality of voice acting. The other elements of the game, though, are weird, and not in the best sense. The writing has this stereotypical sheen of artificiality associated with Marvel movies, and the graphical style feels somewhat odd to me, though I can imagine someone liking them both. The two really questionable elements are primary stage gameplay and the overall upgrade system between stages, which are pretty big parts of the game, alright. The combat stages use a card based system, and I'd like to emphasize I don't have a problem with shuffled cards being a part of a combat game. However, their particular implementation feels very unnatural to me. The characters don't have separate decks, so conversation of ninjutsu starts applying. A lot of cards kind of ignore the physical locations of characters and have them run up to arbitrary enemies in a stage - often to unintuitive distance from unintuitive direction - but many non-card prop-based moves and a few cards do rely on directions derived from characters' positions to work. It isn't really coherent in my opinion. I wouldn't exactly call this system engaging, but at worst it's an unsuccessful experiment; it's passable. The upgrade loop, on the other hand, feels much more like an intended problem. It has multiple types of lootboxes available for finishing missions, destructive crafting of cards into better "normal" cards and one-time perishable items, resource starvation on the default difficulty level very early into the game. It feels very much like a free-to-play mobile title, except the menu interface was replaced with walking and someone added picking mushrooms and such to make it less obvious. I can only imagine this has something to do with the recent push for an online connection. I cannot check it at the moment - the game is crashing on online startup (while refusing to launch "for the first time" offline). I honestly don't know which option is worse - that this fairly expensive title with paid DLC asks for further money to skip the grind, or that it doesn't. Cherry on top, the writing's scripting feels like it's falling apart despite also feeling very rudimentary. I'm fairly certain one non-trivial event (Dr Strange being shown a red seal thing) happened multiple times to me. I can accept this game being less ambitious in regards to intercharacter interactione than the competition, but at least they could not bug it up that much... Do not buy this game in its current state.

Denuvo

Fun game! Likeable characters, and a well written story.

Where do I go to get a Steam refund for the game? I don't like these new terms and I want my money back.

O jogo é bom. Não é 10/10, mas é bom. Basicamente, você vai dividir seu tempo entre as missões (combate por turnos baseado em cartas), que é a parte mais divertida do jogo, e a "abadia", que é a sua base e onde você socializa com outros heróis, melhora suas habilidades etc. Confesso que a parte da abadia não me atrai muito. É um pouco desestimulante ter que lidar com intriguinhas e birras entre heróis e assuntos (muitas vezes juvenis) pessoais de cada um. Isso piora ao saber que vocês estão enfrentando uma ameaça que pode acabar com o mundo, enquanto você está lá pescando com o Spider Man para evoluir seu "nível de amizade" com ele e conseguir uma nova habilidade ou participando de um clube do livro com o Blade e a Capitã Marvel. É forçado. Enfim, tem gente que vai adorar ter esse vislumbre mais pessoal dos super-heróis. Eu, particularmente, acho que essa parte do jogo é "inflada" e toma tempo demais. Quanto ao combate, ele é bastante simples, mas divertido. As animações dos ataques são lindas. Devo alertar a uma última coisa: o jogo crasha bastante. É interessante salvar com frequência. Aconteceu 3 vezes em minhas 40 horas de jogo. Na terceira, acabei droppando o jogo por conta disso, pois perdi bastante progresso. No entanto, a experiência em geral foi positiva e me diverti ao longo do caminho.

No puedes cambiar las condiciones unilateralmente ♥♥♥♥♥, este nuevo nuevo drm de 14 dias hace que quien lo ha comprado tenga la peor version posible, es que me ♥♥♥♥ en todo, que quien lo piratea le vaya mejor porque 2K y Denuvo sean unas ♥♥♥♥♥ de ♥♥♥♥ es para ♥♥♥ y no echar gota.

This is a cautious recommendation. I bought the game because the developer brought back XCOM and for that, I will always be grateful. However, this is not a superhero-themed RTA, it's a card-based battler with some positional play, a weird open world exploration game tacked on and SO MUCH TALKING! However, I have to admit that I finished the game, which is more than I can say for most games I started.

CAUTION STEAM DECK USERS: It does not function on Steam Deck. 17-20fps in the hub world. DO NOT PURCHASE!!!!

Underrated game, great gameplay

I'm having trouble launching the game. Despite multiple attempts, it fails to open. When I click 'Play,' the status changes to 'Running,' but no game window appears on the screen.